There are a handful of cloud services available to Linux users that provide native apps.
Dropbox is one of the oldest and most popular. Then there’s Mega and pCloud. Google shamelessly decided not to create a Google Drive client for Linux.
You can also Self-hosted Nextcloud or Seafile, but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
Recently I was approached by another cloud storage provider called Internxt. I asked if they provide a desktop app for Linux users, and the answer was yes. I also found this they are open source both server side and client side.
Nice, I installed Internxt on my Ubuntu system, and here I will share my experience.
Internxt review: A healthy mix of privacy, security and freedom
Internxt is based in Spain. Like several other EU-based companies, encryption and privacy are at the heart of its concerns.
It’s a zero-knowledge encrypted cloud storage service. This means that no one but you can access your data. Your data is encrypted before being downloaded and decrypted with your password. The server does not have access to keys that could be used to decrypt your data.
It also means that you should not lose your password with Internxt. If you lose the password, you completely lose your data.
There is more to Intenxt’s offering when it comes to privacy and security, however.
With particular attention to Web3he uses a decentralized approach. Files uploaded to Internxt Drive are sharded, client-side encrypted, and distributed worldwide. A single server never contains a complete file, but just an encrypted data fragment.
The icing on the cake is that Internxt is open source. You can check the source code of various components on their GitHub repository.
How cool is that! Let me share my experience with Internxt over the past two weeks.
The Internxt Drive experience on Linux
Internxt’s main offering is Drive, cloud storage for all kinds of files. They also have a product called Photos to securely store photos and videos from your smartphone on the Internxt drive.
I focus here on Internxt Drive. It is a new product, and therefore more features will be added in the near future.
Setup and setup
For Linux users, there are AppImage and DEB files. You can also get the DEB package from their official website, and you can find various installation files on its GitHub repository.
Installing the DEB file is easy. After installation, when you start it for the first time, it displays a few screens to help you get familiar with the Drive.
(Click to enlarge the images)
On first run, it creates a new folder named Internxt in your home directory. All the files you place here are synced to the cloud and you can access them on any device through a web browser. Likewise, any files you keep on the drive are added to the Internxt folder on your local drive.
Internxt adds an applet indicator to the top panel for quick access to settings and preferences. It works with Ubuntu, but I don’t know how it would work with elementary OS and distros with vanilla GNOME as they disallow applet flags.
This is the default behavior. You can change the sync folder to any other folder you want. I went with the default options.
Now, here’s the thing. Sync doesn’t start immediately and automatically, so I had to manually press the sync button. You can drag and drop files into the Internxt folder, but to sync it to the cloud, you need to go to the Internxt applet indicator, press the Show/Hide button, and then press the Play button.
But that’s by design, apparently. It was mentioned in the configuration screens. It probably syncs automatically after some interval, but it probably doesn’t happen immediately.
It was a surprise for me. But the Internxt team told me that real-time synchronization will arrive in the next version with selective synchronization.
Yes, Internxt does not have the option to choose which web drive folders you want to sync to your local drive at this time. This should be added in future releases.
Synchronization and backup
Internxt offers two ways to store your files: synchronization and backup.
Backup lets you sync any folder on your computer to the cloud. Any changes you make to this folder(s) should be reflected in the cloud.
In this case, you don’t need to copy and paste the files into the Internxt folder to save them to the cloud.
The backup is not in real time at the moment. You can select the update frequency from its settings.
I don’t think the backup feature supports versioning. It might be a good feature to add in the future release, though.
Internxt Update
Luckily, a new version of Internxt came out soon after I installed it. I got the notification when I tried to access Internxt settings.
The “Download update” option confused me a bit because it was downloading the DEB file for the latest version. Installing the DEB file required deleting the existing Internxt installation.
I wasn’t sure if this would delete the Internxt folder as well, but I continued and luckily everything stayed in place.
Experience with Internxt Drive on the web
Internxt’s web interface is clean and simple, and it looks modern compared to pCloud’s web interface.
There are limits to what you can do on the web interface. As of writing this review, it is not possible to read text files or Markdown files. I didn’t feel the need to check the doc files as that wouldn’t work for sure.
However, you can read PDF documents, which is surprising.
It displays the images if you click on them but not their thumbnails. This feature will be added in future releases.
And no, it cannot play videos at the moment.
You can share individual files with others but not folders, and I found that a little weird.
Overall, the web experience is fine for file storage, but it needs some improvements on the file viewing part.
However, I have not tested Internxt on mobile devices.
Is Internxt worth using?
Internxt is quite new and under heavy development, and new features will be available in future releases.
With the added features, it can be a promising alternative to popular options.
Internxt is open source software, and you can find all the source code. However, you don’t have to worry about hosting it yourself. You can start using Internxt immediately by registering with them. With zero-knowledge encryption, your files should stay secure and private.
Internxt offers 2GB of free cloud storage when you sign up. The free storage can be expanded up to 10GB by “completing challenges”, such as downloading its mobile app.
However, you should opt for their paid plan if you can afford it. You get access to more cloud storage space, and the retail price is as low as $12 per year for 20GB.
But if you follow my suggestion and if it is affordable for you, you should opt for their lifetime plan. With this, you get 1TB of cloud storage for a one-time payment of €99 (plus tax).
Note that Internxt will stop selling its lifetime plan by the end of this month. They had already interrupted for the general public but I asked for an extra week. If you get it before the end of February, you’ll get cloud storage for one payment. If you’re considering it, decide before the end of the month.
Internxt – Limited Time Lifetime Offer
Internxt is ending its lifetime offer which gives you 1TB of cloud storage for a one-time payment of €99. This plan will be phased out by the end of February, so please Hurry up. You are guaranteed a 30-day refund.
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They have one 30-day money back guarantee, so you can get your full amount back if you don’t like it. What more can you ask for?
The money back guarantee should have you covered if you don’t like it.
Internxt also strives to include Photos (for photo backup), Mail (for encrypted email), and Send (for large file transfer) in its offering. All of this makes Internxt a worthwhile investment.
Internxt is one of the few open source projects that ticks so many boxes. It is an open-source but easy to use commercial product. Like all other offerings, it’s not perfect and there’s room for improvement.
Currently I am using pCloud to dump all kinds of data as I have their 2TB lifetime plan. Now I will be using the 2TB of Internxt storage to store photos and videos from my phone. I have a nine month old and I’m always running out of space because I keep taking too many photos and videos! 🙂
If you decide to use Internxt or have used it before, share your experience in the comment section. Do you think it’s worth recommending to others?
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